For Blackberry Replacement, advisable to do Full or Selective Restore?

Greetings all! My company uses Blackberry and i'm the IT Admin there responsible for installing all the BBs for my staff. Occasionally, Blackberry will release new models which my company acquire and then I'm suppose to replace some of the senior staff's older BB with the newer models.

1 - May I know would it be better to execute a Full Restore or a Selective Restore (memos, messages, SMS, etc) after replacing their BB?

Currently, most of the staff here are using a selection of 8700, 7100, 7230 and 7730. I'm replacing most of them with either Pearl or 8707 (3G) BB.

If I were to do a Full Restore, would it have issues as i'm backing up a older model of BB and restoring it on a newer version.

2 - In addition, if I were to do a Selective Restore, what are the important items I need to restore as sometimes, I miss out vital info like memos and such. What are the rest of the data that are important that I should restore over? Like password keeper, etc?

weak_pig

03-22-2007 08:04 PM

Just to add - My company BB users are on BES Server and we are on Enterprise Activation. Desktop and Handheld software version on 4.x

John Clark

03-22-2007 08:14 PM

If you do a full restore then you'll have issues with the BES activation. That's what I've run into.

Start with a clean device and just activate it on the BES. All the user's previous info should sync from the server and the BB should end up configured just like the old one was with just about all the data. If there was 3rd party software that won't get sync'd.

There is always the switch device wizard for Desktop Manager. That will transfer everything over and then activate it on the BES.

weak_pig

03-22-2007 08:26 PM

Ok, I'll try the Switch Device option and see if it works. Thanks.

I have tried doing Full Restore as well and it cause issues with my BB as well.

But the thing is, if i don't do a Full Restore, sometimes i may miss out important restore data like Memos and Browser Bookmarks...

d_fisher

03-22-2007 08:32 PM

If your using BES you shouldn't even have to worry about it. The BES will send the settings from the prior device to the new one during the activation process.

weak_pig

03-22-2007 09:12 PM

But should I do a Enterprise Activation first, then do the Restore? Or the other way around? Or it doesn't matter?

Cos when I sync my BB with the DT Mgr for the 1st time, almost immediately, EA started almost immediately after that.

d_fisher

03-22-2007 09:22 PM

If your doing enterprise activation you should have to restore anything. Test it out on your own device. Wipe is and reactivate it. Poof! Everything is back (minus messages).

If you do a restore do it BEFORE you activate. Otherwise you might overwrite something.

John Clark

03-23-2007 12:05 AM

I've tried restoring first and I've had desktop service book issues. Restoring first works ok if it's the same device. But when I've tried it with a replacement device is when I've had the desktop service book issues after EA.